It hasn’t stopped raining in Ireland for about three months. Summer is almost over and we still haven’t managed to put our raincoats and boots aside. So we decided we needed a real summer break. Friday, 3^rd August we left Dublin for Malmö (Sweden). And four perfect days followed. Warmly welcomed by Katsya and Raphaël, we started our stay by meeting their friends for Lars’s birthday. It reminded us of our Erasmus years: friends from all around the world chatting (some more than others!) until late with good food and drinks.

In order to enjoy our first summer day at its best, we spent Saturday at the beach (Falsterbo peninsula). After a nice swim and a wonderful ice cream, we came back to Malmö to play volleyball and pétanque and have barbecued Swedish sausages.

I think the main themes of our holidays were: food and Maxime asking me if I wanted to live in Sweden.

  Et apres l'effet des bobs jaunes...

On Sunday Raphaël and Katsya were working so we joined Bernie, Nata and Lars for a trip to Ven island; and to quote Nata “that was life”. Such as typical Swedes, we rented three bikes and one tandem, and cycled all around the island, stopping once in a while for cheese on bread, sausages, smoked fish, ice-cream… Steering the tandem wasn’t always easy; fortunately there were almost no cars on Ven.

And because we hadn’t eaten enough, Katsya and Raphaël prepared a nice Swedish and Belarussian dinner (tomatoes in vinegar, herrings in a mustard and dill sauce, cucumber and eggs on black bread), that was served with a real Irish coffee.

Monday morning we shopped with Raphael; it was better than Disneyland! We bought three types of herrings, Krisprolls, Pepparkakor biscuits (dedicated to Guigui ;-)!), kaviar paste, jam… our bag wasn’t big enough for more L

After a sunny breakfast on Raphaël’s and Katsya’s balcony, Max and I spent the day in Ystad, a beautiful medieval town with lovely courtyards.

We enjoyed our last night in Malmö with two other friends of Katsya and Raphael, eating a great dinner once more J

Katsya was our guide on Tuesday morning and we visited the newly built harbour of Malmö with its strange buildings.

As Katsya went for an interview (fingers crossed), Raphaël took her place as a guide and showed us his work’s area (the historical Malmö). It was quite difficult to say goodbye then (especially after a lovely lunch in the sun), but Raphaël made us laugh until the last minute by locking himself outside his office (we think he did it on purpose…)

Thanks again for these great moments…now we are back to cloudy and rainy Ireland…